EXCERPT
CHAPTER
THREE
The
first thing Theo realized was that he itched all over. The
second was that somehow—in the blink of an eye—he’d gone
from a horror movie in his back yard to the middle of a
Star Trek set. He was on a platform facing a bank
of computer screens and a short console. In front of the
console were a group people in green and black uniforms.
Two were clearly not human. One looked a bit like a short,
curly-haired Wookie. No, that was Star Wars. Wrong
movie. The other was… his vision hazed. His head spun. His
body tingled relentlessly. He knew with sickening certainty
he was moments from passing out.
Not good.
He locked his knees. Someone grabbed his arm, steadying
him as he sucked in a deep breath. Something slid through
his fingers. The laptop. He turned then let it go because
now, in the bright lights of this science fiction movie
set, he couldn’t stop looking at the woman who took it away
from him.
He saw her—or thought he saw her—in the uneven glare of
the porch light over his backdoor. A teenager in some mismatched
slam-jam outfit running towards him, hollering. He thought
she was in trouble, needed help. The whole neighborhood
knew he was a cop. He intended to grab her, try to calm
her down when suddenly two beams of light burst from her
hands.
That’s when he noticed the big green glowing hole in the
night sky about twenty feet away.
Seconds later she was braced against him—her lithe, muscular
body draped in odd equipment. Some kind of lens covered
her right eye. He quickly discarded his initial impressions
of teen and slam-jam. She looked like a member of a futuristic
SWAT team.
And then he saw the… what had she called it? The zombie.
Cristos! Worse than any images of the Kalikantzri
from his childhood Christmases.
He went on autopilot after that. He hazily remembered damning
himself for not putting his hip holster and gun back on
immediately after changing his coffee-soaked clothes. He
somewhat more clearly remembered taking some kind of gun
from her. But mostly he focused on that towering abomination
with glowing eyes and metal skin covered with crawling,
writhing worms.
Understandably, he wasn’t focused on her, or what she looked
like. Until now. She was sweaty, grass-stained, dirt-streaked.
And she was unequivocally gorgeous. Exotic. Medium height,
5’5” or so, and slender but not skinny. Her skin color reminded
him of honey. She had muscles. She had curves. Nice curves.
His gaze traveled up from her cleavage to a heart-shaped
face with dark-lashed eyes. And lips any Hollywood actress
would pay big bucks to own. Lips he’d love to—
He blinked, hard. Slow down, Petrakos. Slow down.
Sounds, voices filtered back into his ears, making him aware
he’d been temporarily deafened. A tremor shook his body,
subsiding as quickly as it had appeared. He was suffering
from disorientation, delusions. Too many nights on call
out resulting in lack of sleep, that’s all this was. In
a moment, it would all disappear and he’d be back in his
kitchen, popping the top off a nice cold can of orange soda
he’d left standing on the counter. He intended to finish
that off before heading back to the department with the
sound system and Mr. Crunchy’s laptop.
He drew in a deep breath, then another. The itching sensation
on his skin abated to a mild annoyance. But when the scene
before him didn’t morph back into his familiar brown and
yellow tones of his kitchen, reality began to stealthily
creep back in.
And it wasn’t a reality he liked. He unstuck his tongue
from the roof of his mouth and tried to speak. “What happened?”
His voice sounded rough. Not surprising, given what his
body felt like.
She glanced his way. She was a few feet in front of him,
talking in a strange language to a woman with curly red
hair, clad in the same kind of shorts and odd, one-sleeved
shirt she wore but minus all the hardware. A short spate
of more unintelligible words and she handed the laptop to
the women then stepped back up onto the platform.
“Mine.” She reached for the gun he still held in his hand.
His cop senses kicked in. Instinctively he stepped back,
raising it.
A pale-skinned man and that Wookie-looking one reacted,
silver weapons appearing in their hands. Aimed at him. Tension
laced the room. Another man and a dark-skinned, yellow-haired
woman turned from their consoles, hands on the weapons at
their hips.
“Mine,” the woman in front of him repeated.
He was outnumbered. He might be able to take two, three
of them out, but his stomach was still doing somersaults.
Even he could somehow convince his legs to run, he doubted
he’d make it as far as the door alive. Unless, of course,
this was some kind of elaborate practical joke. In which
case, if he reacted with deadly force, innocent people could
get hurt.
Every good cop knew there was a time to act and a time to
wait, gather information. This, clearly, was not a time
to act.
Gritting his teeth, he lowered the gun. The woman plucked
it from his fingers. The weapons aimed at him disappeared
into holsters. The low hum of conversation resumed.
The woman said something he couldn’t understand.
“What?”
“No concerns. You’re safe here.”
Safe? Where was here? Hell, he was a detective.
He should be able to find out that simple answer. “Where
am I?” he asked, putting some firmness in his voice this
time. At least, he thought he had. His head still wobbled.
He shook it. Wrong move, Petrakos. That didn’t
help
“Sakanah. Ship,” she said.
He listened for a moment to the other voices around him.
Hers was the only one in the room he could understand. “Where?”
“Come.”
Well, hell, why not? his brain said as it completed
yet another looping circle. It wasn’t like he had anything
else to do. Still wobbling, he followed her off the platform,
scratching at the prickling sensation on his arm...
More
sample teasers from THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES:
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